The American dream, for a mill

EXAMINER EDITORIAL WRITER

Published 4:00 am, Monday, November 10, 1997

1997-11-10 04:00:00 PDT SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA -- AN ITEM on the real estate pages caught our eye recently. It reported that the median price of a typical 3-bedroom, 2-bath home in Kentfield had topped $1 million.

The American dream for only a million bucks. Well, to be exact: $1,050,000.

For sure, this upscale Marin County community isn't gritty Daly City, or hardscrabble Akron, Ohio, for that matter. But 3 BDR, 2 BATH isn't a mansion either, by any stretch of the wallet. It's a basic family home - what some in previous generations might even have considered a

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These days, though, it looks like Ozzie better have a $250,000 job as a VP of marketing at a computer software start-up, and Harriet better be pulling a hundred thou-plus as an attorney for the Golden Gate Bridge District. With a big down payment, their dough would just about get them a loan on that Kentfield dream cottage.

A million is a nice round figure. And scary. Years ago, homes in Marin sold for $10,000 - but that was before Ozzie and Harriet. Still, $1 million is 100 times more than $10,000, and neither wages nor the price of milk has jumped nearly so much.

It would be nice to consider Kentfield an anomaly. The folks in, say, Palo Alto know better. Yet, it's true that you can pick up a nice three-bedroom bungalow elsewhere in Marin or the Stanford environs for a mere half mill. Well, maybe $600,000. And going up all the time.

The inflation-is-dead crowd ought to take a look. In six months, the price of that Kentfield home climbed nearly 10 percent - or $92,000. A couple of decades ago, that was the purchase price of a house.

Real people buy these homes. We think. But the other 99 percent of the populace can't afford the American dream in Kentfield. And someday, if the virus spreads, they won't be able to get that dream house in Daly City or Akron, Ohio, either. Better buy the dream while it's still on sale - or else go into software sales.&lt;